The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the availability of presentations from its Advanced Development and Optimization (ADO) Workshop. As previously reported in the Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group (BRAG­®) blog post DOE Advanced Development And Optimization Workshop, the workshop took place at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on December 12-13, 2017. Discussion focused on how the new ADO program area can best serve stakeholders in developing the bioenergy industry, existing assets from past investments, and future needs and opportunities for maximizing such assets’ value.

On January 23, 2018, DOE announced that researchers at PNNL have developed a catalyst capable of converting ethanol directly into butadiene. Butadiene is the building block for nearly every major synthetic plastic or rubber in the U.S, including tires, fuel hoses, and children’s toys. The project, which is sponsored by BETO, aimed to generate butadiene from renewable sources by developing a new catalyst that can convert ethanol into butadiene. The current ethanol-to-butadiene catalysts required pure ethanol, free of water, to be passed through multiple times to achieve a 70 percent yield. The team of PNNL researchers has developed a silver nitrate powder and zirconyl nitrate-based catalyst capable of converting 70 percent of aqueous ethanol to butadiene in a single pass under industrially-relevant conditions. According to Vanessa Dagle, it is the most active ethanol-to-butadiene catalyst reported to date and introduces the possibility of renewable ethanol as a source of butadiene in addition to petroleum.

On January 22, 2018, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) announced that a new study on lifecycle energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission effects of biodiesel updates and reaffirms the benefits of using the renewable fuel. The report was published jointly by ANL, Purdue University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Researchers gathered data on the energy and emissions from farming soybeans, the feedstock for approximately half of U.S. biodiesel. Among the data collected was the largest survey of biodiesel production facilities to date to determine the amount of energy used to convert fats, oils, and grease into biodiesel. The data was analyzed using ANL’s flagship Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET®) LCA model and predicted economic impacts. The results demonstrate that biodiesel reduces GHG emissions by a range of 66 to 72 percent, compared to petroleum diesel. Jim Duffield, former USDA Agricultural Economist, stated that “[the report shows] the highest GHG reduction of any heavy-duty transportation fuel and reflects biodiesel’s natural ability to store solar energy in a liquid form compatible with today’s engines and power generation technologies.”

The study also models the indirect land use change (ILUC) to quantify the future impact of such predicted change in land use. According to Farzad Taheripour, one of the Purdue University authors, “[d]ata available today shows that farmers all around the world are increasing productivity on existing farm land. Calibrating the model to these real-world trends improves the accuracy and reduces the predicted emissions of biofuel expansion.” The improved model demonstrates a 30 percent reduction in ILUC emissions compared to the score adopted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2015.

The research is a continuation of NASA’s investigation on the impact of biofuels on jet engine pollution, as previously reported in the Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group (BRAG®) blog post NASA Confirms Biofuels Reduce Jet Engine Pollution. Compared to previous experiments, NASA will be flying where contrails form and persist, which will provide more opportunities for gathering data, and will be analyzing data using a much more extensive instrument.